


I Can't Live Within You

by damnrightitskakko



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Fluff and Angst, M/M, OR IS IT, Plot Twists
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-09-12 20:54:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9090364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damnrightitskakko/pseuds/damnrightitskakko
Summary: Lance's life is hell; his job sucks, school's eating his face, and his social life is practically dead. One day at a time, he kept telling himself. One day at a fucking time, just to keep everything from falling apart. Then along comes Keith, and suddenly falling apart might just be exactly what he needs.coffee shop customers based on Real Experiences working at the Coffee Shop Which Shall Not Be Named





	1. the daily grind

“I’d like to order a tall caramel crumble frappuccino lite, decaf, with extra crumble, but with breve instead of non-fat, caramel drizzle inside the cup, extra whipped cream, in a grande cup, with an extra shot of decaf, extra ice, and can you have one more pump of the lite caramel too?”

Lance’s smile froze on his face, and he mentally counted to five.

“Yeah, about that…” He reached over the counter and tapped his finger against a sign written in angry sharpie posted over the pastry display.

“We’re preparing for a complete store renovation, so a lot of our ingredients are running out since we’re not restocking for the renovation. This is currently everything we don’t have in the store right now.”

The man, somewhere in his fifties with  bottlecap glasses and the _ugliest_  Hawaiian shirt Lance had ever seen, crinkled his eyes as he looked at the list. “Can you make my drink?”

Lance breathed through his nostrils. One, Two, Three--

“Sir, I’m sorry, we’re currently out of most of the ingredients required to make that drink. But I can try to make something else for you, as long as we still have it.”

The man glared at him, and Lance was certain the man was contemplating murder then and there. Hey, he understood the feeling--going without your caffeine fix was a struggle he could all too well relate to, since he had to start his shift a whopping five hours early to cover for the resident no-show-employee of the year at _five in the morning_ and he _still_ hadn’t been able to go on break, for _five hours_ . If he didn’t know any better, Lance would suspect that the universe was testing him somehow, torturing him just to make him break. But no, he was pretty sure he just had the _worst_ luck, ever.

Also, his workplace was literal cancer. And he was allergic to coffee, anyways, and the store was out of tea.

“Well”, the man began, not bothering to look at the list that Lance so helpfully pointed out to him, “Then, I’ll have a caramel macchiato.”

“Sir, we are out of caramel.”

The man grumbled, and Lance prayed, hoped, that he would just _leave_ . He was the only one out on the bar right now, and if this asshole who was too lazy to _read the sign_ didn’t just settle on something he could actually serve, there was going to be a line out the door and Lance was going to die. Dramatically, with extra fanfare, and some fucking non-existent caramel fucking drizzle, on top.

“Well, how about lemonade?”

 _Kill me now!_ , screamed the angry buzzing voice of the ghost of rational thought in Lance’s brain.

“Sir, as it you can see on this list, _right here_ ”, Lance tapped the sign again, “we are currently _out of lemonade_.”

“Oh, for the love of--” the man harrumphed, and folded his arms over his hideous shirt. “If you’re out of everything, why the hell are you guys still even open?”

“I too ask myself this very question, as to why our district manager thought this was a good idea”, he drawled, and still screaming internally.

The man was obviously displeased with his answer. “Then, do you even have any coffee??”

“Yes!” Lance thought, _finally_ , and turned to the industrial-size coffee brewer behind him. “We only have the medium and light roast on tap right now, though, but--”

There was an angry harrumph, and Lance watched the man throw his arms up in the air before storming out the front door, muttering something about “food shortages in Eastern Germany”. Finally, Lance could let his fake smile drop, and he rubbed his face.

“ _God._ ”

“Dude, is that the face a barista should have on shift?”

Lance turned slowly in the direction of the voice. There was a guy with a red jacket, black hair, and a judgemental scowl that Lance _really_ didn’t have the energy to put up with right now. Worse, he was sure he knew this guy from somewhere, but he was too tired to put a finger on it. Still, despite no caffeine, despite the day being absolute _shit_ , despite how he was pretty sure he had yet another grade-a asshole on his hands while his other two co-workers were skating by playing hooky, Lance was resolved to see this awful, _awful_ day through. He would deal, and put on his goddamn perfect performance of a customer service representative and just put one more customer out of his way--

“Why, is there something wrong with my face?”

Lance saw the guy’s eyebrows quirk up, and closed his eyes shut in the agony of defeat. Oops.

“...Sorry. What I meant to say, is--”

“Are you the only one here?”

Lance opened his eyes, and saw the other guy looking around the store. He saw his eyes take in everything--the overflowing trash, the messy seasoning station, the sign of missing ingredients, the empty pastry case, the spill on the floor he’d been meaning to clean up. But until his coworker came back, he couldn’t leave the bar unattended to go get the mop, or do--anything. He was stuck there, and Lance hated feeling stuck.

“...sort of”, Lance replied. “There’s supposed to be two people out here on the bar at all times minimum, but the other barista is on his ten, and my shift supervisor is in the back managing the counts.”

If he wasn’t blowing his shift smoking pot, that is, Lance left unsaid. As much as he hated the guy, he felt like blowing his cover to a random customer wasn’t going to help his work relationships much.

“So, yes, only one here effectively. Sorry to disappoint.”

“Yikes. That explains the trash.”

Lance wanted to retort, but the guy seemed sympathetic now; he wasn’t scowling anymore, at least. Thank god. He felt the tiniest spark of relief, and watched as the guy began perusing the sign on the case. That made him the first guy today to notice the list without him explicitly pointing it out to him, which immediately put this mysteriously familiar guy on Lance’s “best customer of the day” list. A few peaceful moments passed, and the guy turned back to Lance with a sour expression.

“Wow, you guys are out of nearly everything. Why are you still open?”

Aaaand good favor lost. Lance stiffened, and tried not to think overtly murderous thoughts.

“Take it up with our district manager”, Lance said, and sighed. “For some reason, he thought it would be a smarter idea for us to exhaust all our stock before closing down for renovation, instead of...just closing when we ran out of everything.”

“So, what, you’re just supposed to deal with having nothing while customers scream at you?”

“Pretty much”. Lance leaned on the counter and sighed. “We’re not even supposed to grab stuff from the other stores nearby, which we normally would do when we run out of stuff--because then what if we grab too much, and then there’s crap in our fridge when we close down?” he shrugged, and turned back to the counter where all the remaining ingredients were. If the guy was going to take forever to make up his mind on an order, he might as well make himself something while he waited--something with a buttload of sugar. His eyes were getting tired.

“Hmm. Well...I guess…” the guy continued to hem and haw, and Lance was plenty happy to let him as he poured himself an entire venti cup of nothing but whipped cream. He even had time to write his name on the cup before the guy was ready to order.

“Okay. What coffee do you have on tap?”

“The medium and light roast.”

“Which one do you recommend?”

“Can’t. I’m allergic to coffee.”

Lance never got tired of watching people’s faces hearing that, but the look on this guy’s face was absolutely priceless. He would burn it into his memory, think back upon it for decades, and laugh.

“You work at a coffee shop and you’re allergic to coffee?”

“Indeed. Every day is an adventure here”, Lance said, and uncapped his sharpie. “If you’re looking for something strong, I’d recommend getting ristretto shots instead of the coffee on tap; it’s stronger because the shots are pulled longer.”

The guy made a small “oh” with his mouth, and then nodded to himself. “Okay, do that.”

“Right on. May I have a name for this order?”

“Keith is fine.”

 _Keith_. Did Lance know a Keith? He must have, from somewhere. Frowning in thought, Lance wrote down ‘Keith’ in large, friendly capital letters, and set the cup down as he filled the order on the register. He then put in his member code, and hit “enter.”

“Wait--” Keith spoke up, his hand fishing his pocket for his wallet. Were those fingerless gloves? “That’s--why does it say zero?”

“‘Cuz today’s order is on the house”, Lance replied, and got behind the espresso machine. “Just because you’re such an upstanding customer.”

“What? But…”

“Wise man say, ‘forgiveness is divine and never say no to free coffee’”, Lance said, just happy that no other customers had come in while this Keith guy’s shots were pulling. If it kept on like this, he might actually be able to go clean up that spice counter before someone yelled at him about it. The napkins looked they were almost out, too…

“Thanks, I guess.”

“No problemo, man.” The shots finally finished pulling, and he finished up with the lid on top. “Enjoy your really strong shots, ‘Keith’.”

“Thanks, Lance”, Keith said, and picked up his drink before leaving the store in a hurry. Lance balked. Keith knew his name! That meant he knew him, right? So he must have been right about knowing him! How else would he--

Lance slapped the front of his apron, felt his nametag, and winced. Right. He scowled at himself, and went back to his cup of slowly melting whipped cream feeling like an idiot. He still couldn’t shake the feeling that he knew Keith from somewhere--but where?

Lance took one gigantic sip of his whipped cream, and then, seeing that there were no customers at the bar, finally made his way to the spice counter. There was plenty of time to worry about where he knew Keith from later, when he _didn’t_ have a fuckton of crap to do.

~~~~

 **Lance:** at last, I am free of the dark embrace of coffee hell.   
**Hunk:** Holy shit it’s ten pm what the hell

Lance sighed, and fumbled with his keys as he tried to text Hunk back. It really was a long fucking day.

Shortly after Keith had left and he’d gotten the spice counter all set up, the post-lunch rush of customers had come into the store. In a panic, he’d knocked on the back wall to get his shift supervisor’s butt out, and he’d hit the wall maybe a _little_ too hard. His knuckles still stung, and he tried to avoid doing too much with that hand while he typed.

 **Lance:** Tell me about it. They almost made me stay to do closing, but I reminded them that they still owe me at least ten breaks from the past week of covering shifts. I swear, one of these days they’re gonna make me work the whole flippin’ day and kill me.  
**Hunk:** dude seriously that’s not good. Like, seriously, illegal and stuff. You need to stop letting them push you over!

Lance sighed, and got into his car.

 **Lance:** I know, man. But what can I do? My parents want me to move out AND I have to cover my school expenses for the semester by myself. That overtime pay!  
**Hunk :** still...you look dead every time I see you at school. Please don’t die.  
**Lance :** thanks, this renovation can’t come soon enough. Feels like I’ve been stuck in this week forever.

Lance pursed his lips, and tried to remember the day. There was something that happened...what was it…

That customer. What was his name again? Kid, Ken, Kenneth...

 **Lance:** Say, is there a guy who goes to our school with a mullet? There was a guy who came to the store today and I feel like I knew him from somewhere.  
**Hunk:** You’re going to have to be more specific, there’s a lot of bad hair around campus.  
**Lance:** Damn. you’re right. Umm…

Lance urged himself to think. Mullet...black hair...jacket…

_His hand was in his pockets, reaching for his wallet. Were those fingerless gloves?_

**Lance:** fingerless gloves. You know? Like you’d see an 80’s motorcycle punk.  
**Hunk:** Hmm...oh! You know, I think there was a guy who used to go here like that.  
**Lance:** Used to? You mean he graduated?

That surprised Lance. Keith hadn’t seemed much older than him--was he some sort of prodigy, like Pidge?

 **Hunk :** no, I think he dropped out. Or was suspended, or something? I don’t remember. It happened a while back, and people didn’t really talk about it…  
**Lance:** ah.

A drop-out. Weird. Lance put his seatbelt on, and drummed his hands on the steering wheel. Is that how he knew Keith? He vaguely remembered hearing something about someone dropping out a few semesters back, but still...something didn’t fit. Knowing Keith as a drop-out didn’t fit.

_How do I know this guy?_

Lance shook his head, and sent a quick “driving home now” message to Hunk before turning the ignition. The mystery of Keith could wait until _after_ he’d actually had a good night’s rest.

Lance drove home, trying not to think about Keith all the way home.


	2. Chapter two: the Daily Grind Continues

“Hey, sleeping beauty.”

“Fmmfrrgh,” Lance groaned out from behind his crossed arms that cushioned his head. He was resting in the computer lab, tired, dead, and honestly wishing he was back under some covers. Briefly, the image of a corpse covered with a sheet flashed in his mind, and he shook his head. Not  _ those  _ kinds of covers, he chided himself. A quilt, like those kitschy patchwork ones he used to see at the crafter’s fair with his family. Or a large down comforter.

He opened his eyes briefly to look at the time. 7:36. Class was supposed to start in a few minutes, and these blanket thoughts were doing him no good. Lance groaned, once more with feeling, and dragged himself upright. 

“Good morning to yourself too, Princess”, Lance said, and shot Hunk a look. Hunk was the closest thing that Lance had to a best friend at the school--and sometimes, he acted like it. Like today, where he saw not one, but  _ two  _ thermoses in his friend’s big hands. One of them looked familiar. 

“Is that…”

Hunk sat down in the chair next to Lance, and slid the thermos over. “Morning Kava, for all your caffeine-and-getting-through-life means.”

Between school and work, Lance’s coffee allergy put a major dent in Lance’s ability to get things done for the first few months. His attempts at using tea to get through had worked for a while until he nearly burnt a hole in his stomach with black tea, and from then on he was caffeine toast. Then, like an angel descended from the heavens above, he’d met Hunk; a boisterous, cheerful, and the most knowledgeable guy Lance knew when it came to food--and drinks. Hunk had introduced him to kava--a drink that wasn’t coffee, wasn’t tea, and also wasn’t alcohol--but seemed to serve him just as well as any of them in getting him through hard, demanding times.

And Lance lived through hard, demanding times.

“Mmm….morning Kava...” Lance stared at the thermos, still altogether too tired to do anything but look.  “Thank you, Coffee-alternative Based Hunk, my hero.” 

Lance felt Hunk shift in his seat next to him. Oh no. He knew what was coming.

“Dude, you look bad. Like, really bad.”

Lance groaned. The other reason why Lance considered Hunk the closest thing to a best friend at this school was that he actually seemed to care about Lance outside of schoolwork--which, in a school full of antisocial science geeks with a boner for science and being the smartest person in the room, was a fucking miracle. Especially since as far as Lance was concerned, Hunk  _ was  _ the smartest guy in the room, nay, the entire school. 

Well, it was a close tie between Hunk and that other kid he saw around sometimes with the most stereotypical bottlecap glasses ever, but since he didn’t have any classes with both of them in it, the point was moot. 

Lance continued staring at the thermos, ignoring Hunk’s remark. It was weird; he found Hunk’s concern both endearing and incredibly annoying at the same time, and it pissed him off that even accepting goodwill felt like too much effort. So on days where he really was feeling this bad, he chose to ignore it--because he didn’t have the energy to even begin dealing with it.

And the best way to do that was to change the subject.

“Hey, remember yesterday…”

“You mean where you were locked in your coffee prison for a freakishly long time?”

Lance sat up, and grabbed the thermos.

“Yesterday, when I asked you about uh... Guy.”

Hunk frowned.

“Shit.” Lance popped open the thermos and took a huge swig. “I’m trying to remember Keith’s name. He stopped by the store and I swear I know him from some...Hunk, why are you looking at me like that.”

Hunk sighed, and held his hands in front of him in the best “I’m about to tell you so” gesture he had. “Look, Lance. I know you don’t like it when I tell you how unhappy I am that you keep inflicting this job upon yourself, but uh, I am going to repeat exactly what you just said, and maybe you’ll consider quitting this killer job once and for all, okay?”

“Why, what did I say?”

Hunk bit his lip. 

“Uh, here--’I’m trying to remember Keith’s name’”, he said, in what Lance guessed was Hunk’s best impersonation of him.

“Okay….and…?”

“Lance, seriously? Fine, I’ll repeat it slower this time-- ‘I’m. Trying to!  __ Remember. Keith’s. Name!”

Lance pouted. “I don’t get it.”

Hunk shook his hands in frustration.

“Remember! Keith’s! Name!”

It took Lance more than one second to figure it out. And when he finally did, he closed his eyes in defeat.

“ _ Fuck _ .” Lance rubbed at his temples with his left hand, and took another swig of Kava with his right. “Ffug”, he said again for emphasis. The kava was starting to mess with his tongue, which was, in Lance’s opinion, just as well. It meant the buzz would keep him going for at least the whole class period, until he could take a 2-hour nap before his work shift started and Hell repeated itself.

“Lance…you have to admit I have a point now, right? Come on, dude.” Hunk opened his mouth to say--something else regarding his work life, probably, but just then the professor came into the classroom. The rest of the class started buzzing to life, and Lance looked on blearily as the overhead projector lit up the room with its patent Blue Screen of Death.

Lance saw Hunk mouth “Later” out of the corner of his eye. Ah yes--Hunk would deal with him later. But for now, Lance had a whole hour and a half of staring at an almost unrecognizable star system to get through--and he was almost looking forward to it.

“Now, has everyone submitted a response to the new topic I posted on the online discussion board?”

Almost.

~~

“I’ll have a...glass of water with two pumps of Raspberry,” the woman said with a bright, conspiratorial smile. Like she expected to get away with something devious. Lance knew that look from boasting it himself for years. And maybe, in what seemed like an entire lifetime away ago, he might have thought her cute for it. Might have asked for her number, or said something charming just to hear her laugh, see her smile that smile again,  _ anything  _ to get a thrill out of just being near someone so  _ her.  _

Unfortunately, working at this store had apparently robbed him of his appreciation for cute, devious girls. As far as he was concerned, everyone on the other side of the counter was a menace to society and his sanity, and definitely had no right being anywhere within 200 feet of his flattery. After all, at least half of the “might have been attractive in another lifetime” customers who’d come into the store today had demonstrated a complete lack of critical thinking skills, seeing how many of them kept trying to sneak into the bathroom that was completely blocked off by the mop. 

“Did you know your bathroom’s out of order”, they’d said, after climbing back over the elaborate makeshift blockade in front of the bathroom with a big, impressively large and menacing sign with “BATHROOM OUT OF ORDER, DO NOT ENTER” written in bleeding sharpie. No fucking shit, asshole. 

Lance looked the woman dead in the eye, preparing himself for the shitstorm that was approaching. He regretted skipping out on his nap just to bolt out of class away from Hunk’s Mother-Hen-Apocalypse just to come to work early for  _ this _ . 

“Okay, one Raspberry Infusion. That’s $2.15.”

The woman’s eyes bulged instantly. “What the hell? You’re charging me for water?”

Lance tried to maintain his customer service smile while thinking of all the ways he wanted to die right this very instant.

“If you were just ordering water, then no, I wouldn’t be charging you. But anytime we add ingredients to a drink, that’s a company cost. So, the charge is for the raspberry pumps.”

“It’s just two pumps! Don’t you think that’s too expensive?”

_ Yes _ , Lance thought bitterly, but his shift supervisor would possibly kill him if he let this go. He’d been called into the back by Mr. Sendak earlier in the day, stressing the importance of company policy this, company policy that, blah blah, don’t keep giving people free drinks Lance, grr grr harrumph blah blah. And apparently this whole ‘ordering water with flavors so I can get away with not spending money’ trend had been getting popular enough that it was costing the company enough money to start branding it as its own menu item.

“My personal opinions on price aside, that’s what the drink costs. Would you prefer to just order water?”

“No! Why can’t you just give me the flavored water and not charge me? This is ridiculous!!” 

Before Lance could think of something placatingly Customer Service to say, someone interrupted;

“Are you seriously calling him ridiculous for not giving you free shit?”

Lance blinked, confused. Someone was defending him? That  _ never _ happened. He turned to look, and saw Keith standing in front of the destitute-looking pastry counter--and today’s location of the “ingredients we’re out of” list.

“Excuse me? Who are you? Who is this,” she demanded, turning back to Lance. “Is he an employee off-shift? I want to complain to your manager about him--”

“I’m  _ not  _ employed here, I’m just calling you out on your bullshit.” Keith didn’t even turn to look in her direction. “And, by the way, in case you didn’t notice--” he pointed at the list. “This store is out of raspberry anyways.”

“What”, Lance and the woman say at the same time. He feels a bit of panic rise in his chest. Since when were they out? Why had no one told him? Lance catches the woman her flashing an angry look back at him, and he instantly worried that he was about to endure his second lecture of the day. Instead, she huffed, and just walked away from the counter. Just like that. Lance counted to three as he watched her walk out of the door, just to make sure she didn’t come back for more. But the door did not swing back open, and the silence left behind settled uncomfortably.

Keith was the one to break the silence. “Wow.”

“Yeah. That happens a few times”, Lance said, inspecting the syrup counter. Wasn’t that raspberry right there? He supposed someone might have just written it down to avoid having to serve anything with it, but still…”Did someone mislabel the raspberry…”

“Oh, uh.” Lance looked at Keith, and noticed he had sidled up to the register counter. “I lied about that.”

“Oh.” Lance put down the syrup container he was inspecting. So he wasn’t imagining things. “Huh. Thanks, I guess.”

“Hmm?”

“For…” Lance stopped, and stifled a yawn. The kava was wearing off, and he still had a few more hours of his shift. Ugh. Maybe the green tea would help, if he could find the time to brew a cup for himself. “For that. I guess”.

“I--sure.” Keith tapped his fingers against the counter again, and Lance wondered if it was just him that thought the conversation was awkward. “I’ll have the light roast, if it’s still on tap.”

“Ah. Right on, Keith.” Lance busied himself with Keith’s order, his brain finally starting to work. There were tons of customers that Lance saw more than once during the week--the regulars spared no effort in trying to impress upon Lance how Important and Better they were than every other customer at the store. But it was unusual that a new patron showed up one day after the next. Lance tried to tell himself that it was just coincidence. So what if he showed up two days in a row? Just because he was dying to remember why Keith seemed so familiar, it didn’t mean anything special. Still…

Then it hit him.

_ The list _ . Keith knew about the list of ingredients they were out of, and he came anyways. 

“So, uh.” Lance finished pouring the coffee, and put a lid on the cup as carefully as he could. “What brings you to a store that’s running out of everything two days in a row?” 

Keith was halfway through rifling through his wallet, and looked up. He looked...confused. 

“I don’t--oh.” Keith looked back at the list he’d only lied about just a short while ago, and then looked back at Lance with a puzzled expression on his face. Like he was seriously thinking about why he was even there. “I..don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Well, that just made things more interesting, Lance thought. He wanted to pry more, but Keith slapped some bills on the counter and grabbed his coffee in a rush.

“Keep the change--”

“Wha--Keith, I can’t just--”

But Keith was already heading out the door. 

“What the…that was weird.” Lance picked up the wad of cash, trying to figure out what had just happened. Maybe this weird familiarity he felt with Keith really was just in his imagination--there’s no way he’d forget about someone that  _ weird.  _ Right?

Just then, he heard a commotion near the bathroom. Some guy stumbled, tripping over the mop.

“Hey, did you guys know that your bathroom is out of order?”

Lance crumpled the money in his hands. 

  
Then again, with the incredibly high weirdo threshold his job gave him, someone like Keith just  _ might  _ slip through. Lance vowed that if he saw Keith again anytime soon, he’d ask about it then. 

 


End file.
